


Swear It on Lightdiscs and Recognizers

by Fallowsthorn



Category: Tron: Legacy (2010)
Genre: Alien Culture, Alien Mental Health Issues, Bad Ending, Depression, Gen, Inevitability, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-04
Updated: 2013-07-04
Packaged: 2017-12-17 15:07:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/868929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fallowsthorn/pseuds/Fallowsthorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Once, I swore I would die for you.  But I never meant like this."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swear It on Lightdiscs and Recognizers

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this prompt on the Tron Kink Meme: http://tronkinkmeme.livejournal.com/4397.html?thread=3030317#t3030317
> 
> Major warning, again, for suicide. Tron isn't human and he doesn't perceive things in a human way, but still. It you think this is going to affect you adversely, please steer clear.

Tron had always been willing to terminate for the Users, if need be. That was what programs  _did,_  after all, and he was no different, at least in that regard. He would always, and had always, yielded to that higher power, trusting in it both implicitly and explicitly, when he had to. His capture by the MCP only cemented that ideal. Tron would run himself down to his core programming, and past that, if a User had commanded it, even Alan_1.  _Especially_  Alan_1.   
  
He didn't think it was likely, of course. Alan_1's programming skill was superb, and Tron could say that without a hint of boasting, because it was true. He had been made to protect the system from threats, and he did his job well. It wasn't  _likely_  that Alan_1 would tire of him and delete him, wasn't  _likely_  that he would be derezzed by a virus or gridbug swarm, wasn't  _likely_  that he would be commanded to cease functioning for some indiscernible reason.   
  
But he would. Tron's loyalty, at least then, was black or white. Yes or no. On or off. Null or one. No grey areas. If a User commanded it, it was right and good and should be done to the best his programming would allow. If his programming was flawed, or if it impeded the performance of his functions to maximum efficiency, then he trusted that Alan_1, or some other User, would correct his code. If he was set a task that seemed harsh, or impossible, he knew he would be able to handle it, because a User would not give him a burden he could not bear. And if a User commanded him to falter, to break, to derezz or be deleted, then Tron would accept that fate as he would any other, as the will of the Users.   
  
For cycles upon cycles, Tron ran under the assumption that the Users had a plan. That he was merely a pawn in some great network game. That the Users knew everything about the system, and would never lead him, or any program who served them, astray. Tron had known the Users to be wise, and benevolent, and omniscient.   
  
And then he met one.   
  
And it turned out that the Users didn't have some great plan. They had no idea whether Tron was at his limit or not. His deletion or deresolution meant nothing more to them than a few clicks and taps and lines of code.   
  
But he would still fight for them. Still die for them, and their will. Perhaps, though, not as indiscriminately as before. He had met a God, and the God had looked at him and admitted fallacy, admitted imperfection. Admitted that Users, in all their power and glory, were just as varied and flawed as programs in their motivations and allegiances and commands.   
  
So Tron could no longer die for the old Users, the perfect, shining ones high in the datasphere. That illusion had been shattered into so many pixels. But the new Users were, in some ways, better, and after Tron knew why then it stopped feeling like a betrayal, or blasphemy, to think that. The Users he knew now, Flynn and Alan_1, could sacrifice. They could derezz, they could make mistakes, but more importantly, they could fix them, both in coding and in choice.   
  
And Flynn had risked his own core programming - no. Users didn't have programming, did they? They had - bodies. They didn't run, they lived. Flynn had risked his own life to defeat the MCP, and that sacrifice was one Tron could understand very well.   
  
And so he swore, silently and in gestures and motions, to terminate for Flynn, should the User ever require it. He'd once made mention of it out loud, but it had made Flynn squirm and glitch - no, squirm and look uneasy, so Tron had dropped it.   
  
But the vow was there, always, swirling unspoken when Tron darted in front of the User to battle gridbugs on patrols, and it was humming silently in the background when Flynn asked Tron if he wanted to be copied onto a new system, closed and isolated but almost certainly glitching and full of bugs, because Flynn wanted to create not just a system, but a world.   
  
And Tron had said yes, had not even devoted processing time to the alternative, because this was the will of the Users, and the will of the Users was as his own. 

* * *

The new system - the Grid, Flynn had designated it - wasn't too bad, all things calculated. It was sleek and glossy black, and Tron had been required to reformat before he could  _do_  anything, but there was so much  _space_. The Grid was so silent that Tron could, if he listened, hear it running beneath his feet, muted, awesome  _power_. And there was absolutely  _no one there_. That was the amazing part. Tron had never been on a truly blank system before, and he knew he never would be again. 

He spent the 0.486 millicycles before Flynn showed up simply standing there, and letting the hum of the Grid pour into him, and over him, and around him, like some great purring... well, system.   
  
He measured himself, his code, his vows, against that hum, and he knew he would terminate for this Grid, as well. The information didn't entirely surprise him, but as he swore it out loud, he could, just barely, on the edges of his processing, feel the Grid's hum change to one of satisfaction, and contentment.   
  
Flynn came then, through the solid shaft of light that was all that touched the broken wilds of the datascape, and he filled the Grid's humming silence with chatter about buildings and programs and plans, and Tron let that wash over him, too, and smiled.   
  
When the administrator was written - one designated Clu, coded of thought and risen from the Grid itself - Tron studied him, and classified him as [BASIC] and a [NON-THREAT]. Clu could become a threat, Tron was careful to note, but for now, he served the Users just as much as Tron did. And he was new, so Tron would teach him the way of the world, and that he should swear to the Users, because that was all a program had. 

* * *

And the Isos came.   
  
The first time Tron saw one of the "Miracles," as Flynn put it, he thought he was glitching. He couldn't classify the thing! It was no basic, and yet no User, but some amalgamation of the two, in a way that should have been horrific and yet... wasn't.   
  
The first time he was alone with one of the Isomorphic Algorithms, and silent, he realized what they were. The hum, the Grid's hum, sang out of them, and reverberated among the City walls and echoed along its own slow musical pulse. The Isos were of the Grid, in the way that Clu had been a poor mockery of, and Tron had sworn he would derezz for them as he would for the Users. 

* * *

But Clu never swore.   
  
Tron should have noticed when Clu's class changed slowly to [THREAT]. 

* * *

Tron saw the ambush a moment before Flynn did. He thought it was because Flynn could never see Clu as a threat. But he wasn't sure. All he was sure of, in that moment where the hum of the Grid was the only sound, in the moment where the dread pulsed like a User's heartbeat, was that he would not let Flynn die. 

 _Once, I swore I would die for you,_  he thought to Flynn, even as his mouth snapped out a harsh order to run, go, get away.  _But I never thought it would be like this._    
  
For there was no doubt he would die. He was one program against many, even with his fighting prowess. Users, he'd even given some of those programs tips, back when they were all on the same side.   
  
And one of those programs was Clu, whom Flynn had coded personally, and trained with personally.   
  
 _I never thought it would be at the hand of someone who was once a friend._  

* * *

Later, after, he told Flynn and SamFlynn and Alan_1 that he'd never stopped fighting. 

This was, in a sense, true.   
  
What Tron didn't tell the three Users, laying on his stomach on the shores of the Sea of Simulation to let Alan_1 work on his code, was what he'd been fighting for.   
  
He'd been fighting for survival for a time, yes. Fighting to serve the Users and the Grid and the Isos instead of Clu. Fighting to help Flynn escape. Fighting to throw off the Rinzler patch that kept his processor a prisoner in his own code.   
  
But he hadn't been able to do anything. He hadn't been able to stop his disc from sliding with a sickening shatter into the first Iso's back. He hadn't been able to stop Rinzler - to stop himself from picking up the disc and assimilating it with his own. He hadn't been able to stop the screams for mercy, and then the screams of loss, and then the screams of pain, and then just the screams.   
  
And that was when he'd stopped fighting for survival and freedom. Even after a thousand cycles, he could pinpoint the microcycle so clearly it was like it had been only a millicycle ago. When his disc had first derezzed an Iso and silenced a part of the pure singing hum that was the Grid, he had stopped fighting to survive.   
  
But he hadn't stopped fighting.   
  
In that moment, Tron had begun fighting Rinzler for control of his body in a different way: he had begun fighting to die.   
  
After the third attempt, he'd gotten so close that Clu had deemed it necessary to make some adjustments, to bury Tron deeper. And Tron lost himself, gave himself to the fight.   
  
He would never admit it, but sometimes he was grateful for the screams of the programs and Isos as they died by his – Rinzler's – his disc.   
  
It helped him remember what he was fighting for. 

* * *

And now Tron is healed, rewritten, whichever. Alan_1 has managed to overwrite Rinzler's code. It doesn't matter. Tron can still feel the whispering, creeping fingers, trying to pry back his code and warp him again.   
  
But that's not the worst part. Flynn has forgiven him for breaking his vow, and Quorra, after some thought, has too. Tron sometimes thinks it would be better if they hated him and punished him, but he always reminds himself that this is the will of the Users and he must endure it that way. The promise rings hollower than it ever did before.   
  
But that's not the worst part. SamFlynn classifies him as a [THREAT], sometimes, even though his circuitry is blue (mostly). He can see it in the User's eyes, especially when he's come back from patrol and has his helmet on. Quorra will always classify him as a [THREAT], he thinks, and is resigned to that fact. Alan_1 was amazed to meet his program, and while Tron does not deny him his questions and wonder, he cannot help but feel that he does not deserve it.   
  
But that's not the worst part. The worst part is that the Grid  _hates_  him now. The warm, contented hum is now a constant, hating  _screech_  of impotent rage and indignant pain.  _You killed my children,_  the screeching says, when Tron is alone and welcomes the punishment, the atonement.  _Hate you, hate you, hate you. You **swore**  and you broke your word!_   
  
The worst part is that even now, Rinzler is not under control. Even now, Tron must classify himself as a [THREAT] to the Grid, and to the Users. Even now, when he is upset or tired or unstable, he can glance at his arms and find them flickering, creeping orange that doesn't abate for millicycles, no matter what Tron does. Even now, he can see, sometimes, sides of buildings flicker, or their circuitry go dead, because Tron has merely brushed his hand over the wall.   
  
Even now, in the dark corner of his mind, when he is angry, or frustrated, a thin, insidious voice whispers,  _It would be so easy to eliminate the last bit of that horrid screeching. It would make everything so_ simple _if the Users were to... meet with an unfortunate end._  Sometimes the voice sounds like Clu's. Sometimes it sounds like his own.   
  
And then comes the day that Tron wakes out of his Sleep cycle, and discovers his circuits have bled red-orange without his noticing, and he cannot move or speak or breathe for the screeching in his head.   
  
And he knows that he must go back to doing what he has always done, what he was always supposed to do: protecting the system from [THREAT]s.   
  
The only difference is, he is a [THREAT] now, too.   
  
Tron leaves for the Outlands without telling any of the Users, or any program, where he is going. He lets them make their own reasons, and simply hopes that they will not think to compare justifications until he does what he has to.   
  
The lightcycle ride is short. Tron knew it would be. He kills the engine and climbs off, listening for the silent screech.   
  
He does not find it. Instead, there is a low, interested growl - not quite a hum, but the Grid seems to sense what he is about to do.   
  
Tron unsheathes his disc and holds it in front of him. Only one. Rinzler's was destroyed. He takes a deep breath and lets it out again. He'd planned to explain, maybe, so that one of the Users could reach into the history of the Sector and know why Tron has to derezz himself. The words are gone, though, and suddenly he is speaking not to whomever might view the words later, but to the Grid alone, and the silent stillness that he never heard.   
  
"Once, I swore I would die for you," he whispers, and he feels the Grid's growl change pitch in return. Tron smirks at the irony despite himself, but it feels ugly, like something Rinzler would do, so he stops. "But I never meant like this."   
  
"Tron?" calls a voice in the distance. Flynn's, Tron thinks. He wouldn't understand. He didn't, even when Tron was whole and not a [THREAT] to those he used to serve.   
  
"I swore I would die for him, too," he says to the Grid. "A long time ago."   
  
The Grid growls and whirrs.   
  
"Tron!" It is Flynn, and he has Alan_1 with him. The sight of his User almost makes Tron pause and stop, like Flynn is yelling for him to do. Alan_1 simply stands there in shock.   
  
Tron faces the Users -  _his_  User, he thinks fiercely,  _Mine_  - and slowly raises his disc above his head all the while keeping his gaze locked with Alan_1's.   
  
And then he looks up, at the black-lightning nothing of the clouds, and he almost says something like goodbye. But he stops himself, because suddenly his eyes burn and his chest is very tight and if he says anything more he will lose his strength to do this.   
  
Tron twists his disc out of his final salute and brings the edge down into his own throat.   
  
A few of his pixels shine like tears before winking out of existence.   
  
The Grid hums for him, one last time.   
  
[END OF LINE]


End file.
